Displaying the most recent of 89913 posts written by

Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Hillary’s Two Faces The latest WikiLeak disclosures expose the aspiring Liar-in-Chief in her own words. Joseph Klein

By on October 11th, 2016

One of the online questions posed to Hillary Clinton during the second presidential town hall debate in St. Louis on Sunday evening had to do with remarks she had reportedly made in private to a Wall Street audience, revealed by WikiLeaks, that she has “both a public and a private position” on such issues as Wall Street reform. The questioner wanted to know whether “it is okay for politicians to be two-faced.” Hillary Clinton rationalized her private remark to her audience of Wall Street benefactors as a reference to “Abraham Lincoln after having seen the wonderful Steven Spielberg movie ‘Abraham Lincoln.’”

The only association Hillary Clinton can legitimately claim with the memory of Abraham Lincoln was when the Clintons traded on his name and rented out the Lincoln bedroom to wealthy donors while she and Bill Clinton inhabited the White House.

Donald Trump was ready with the perfect retort: “She got caught in a total lie… She lied. And now she’s blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln – Honest Abe. Honest Abe never lied. That’s the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you. That’s a big difference.”

The latest releases from WikiLeaks revealed other disturbing dimensions of Hillary’s private/public dichotomy. For example, Hillary Clinton, in a bid to win over Bernie Sanders voters, reversed her previous support for free trade deals. Although originally a supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Hillary has in more recent years publicly criticized it. During her primary campaign against Sanders, Hillary also came out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which she had called the “gold standard” while serving as Secretary of State. With respect to the issue of open borders, Hillary Clinton’s so-called fact-check website charges that “Donald Trump and his allies have falsely said Hillary Clinton wants to ‘create totally open borders.’” Yet, in a private speech to a Brazilian bank in 2013, Hillary extolled both “open trade” and “open borders,” according to this excerpt released by WikiLeaks: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.”

Hillary has time and again publicly insisted that she did not place any classified information at risk from hacking by adversaries when using her private e-mail system and devices while Secretary of State. However, she acknowledged in one private speech, excerpts of which were released by WikiLeaks, that “at the State Department we were attacked every hour, more than once an hour by incoming efforts to penetrate everything we had.” Hillary also acknowledged security concerns with the use of blackberries for government business at the time she arrived at the State Department. Yet she would have the public believe that her unsecured private system, server and blackberry devices were somehow not vulnerable to enemy intrusion.

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

KING ABDULLARD OF JORDAN SPEAKS ON “OUTLAWS OF ISLAM” SEE NOTE PLEASE

By on October 11th, 2016

Jordan King: ‘Outlaws of Islam’ are ‘Less Than a Drop in the Ocean of Good Muslim Citizens’ Bridget Johnson
THE KINGLET OF JORDAN, NOT “PLUCKY” AS HIS LATE FATHER WAS DESCRIBED COULD NOT SURVIVE A WEEK WITHOUT THE HELP OF ISRAELI INTEL. THE PALARABS HAVE HAD THEIR SIGHTS ON JORDAN SINCE HIS FATHER KILLED THOUSANDS OF PLO UPSTARTS AND EXPELLED AN EQUAL NUMBER IN THE INCIDENT KNOWN AS “BLACK SEPTEMBER.”…RSK

In Germany on Saturday to accept the Westphalian Peace Prize, Jordanian King Abdullah II told Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German people that “without all of you the world would not be where we are today and we would be in a much worse position.”

“I see, unfortunately, too often, among western officials and opinion leaders, a dangerous lack of understanding of the true nature of Islam. Extremists – on all sides – use that lack of knowledge to polarize societies and drive us apart,: the monarch said. “Far from benefiting a country or community, this division harms us all.”

Abdullah asked to audience to “imagine what the future would look like if we don’t take a stand for each other.”

“If we ignore distant violence and poverty, as if it has nothing to do with our lives, our countries, our economies? If we close our eyes to the worst global refugee crisis in human history, and let a ‘lost generation’, millions of young people, come of age without hope?” he said. “If we let the future belong, not to law, but to outlaws: mass murder, persecution, the abuse of children, the enslavement of women, videoed executions of those who disagree? No. To such a future, we must say no.”

Jordan has absorbed about 1.4 million Syrian refugees, while Germany has taken in more than 600,000.

The king called for “collective action” to “end the regional crises and vulnerabilities that terrorists exploit.”

“Muslim-majority countries in the Balkans need to be integrated into an inclusive Europe, and supported in keeping the door shut against terrorist groups. They are your family, your frontline,” Abdullah argued.

He called for a peace process “that engages all components of the Syrian people, upholds Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, ends suffering, and brings hope.”

Abdullah also advocated “a Peace and Stability Pact for the Levant – a pact that will encompass not only a code of conduct, but enhanced regional cooperation, and a regional fund for cohesion to address the serious socioeconomic challenges our people face.”

The king admitted that the influx of Syrian refugees in his country “has put unprecedented pressures on the essentials of life: jobs, energy, housing, even water” and “is draining a quarter of our entire national budget.” Adding in Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Yemenis, etc., “makes Jordan the biggest host of refugees in the world.”

“It is wrong for Jordanians to be asked to carry such a refugee burden,” he said, stressing the crisis “demands global, collective action, to share the burden and support host communities and refugees alike.”

On fighting terror groups, Abudllah said “the Golden Commandment, to love our neighbor, guides our global responsibilities – and it must guide interfaith relationships as well.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Clinton Foundation Head Declines Questions About Congressional Inquiry By Nicholas Ballasy

By on October 11th, 2016

WASHINGTON — Clinton Foundation president Donna Shalala dodged questions about a congressional request for all communications between the foundation and the State Department while Hillary Clinton was secretary of State.

Shalala was in Washington for a speech at the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Leaders Summit, where the nation’s “healthiest schools” were honored. Following her speech at the event, PJM began to ask Shalala about the letter she received from House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) about the committee’s investigation into connections between the State Department and the foundation. Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) was copied on the letter.

Shalala, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under former president Bill Clinton, waved and walked away when PJM mentioned the letter sent to her by Chaffetz.

Later, after the event concluded, PJM started to asked Shalala if the foundation is going to release the names of all its donors.

“We already do,” she said as she went up the escalator of the hotel.

PJM began to ask a follow-up question but a Clinton Foundation staffer stepped in and said, “She’s heading to a dinner if you could just give us a minute. Thank you so much.”

PJM started to ask about the Oversight Committee letter when the staffer interrupted.

“She’s on her way to some personal activities, so we appreciate your understanding,” she said.

Continue reading →
IMMIGRATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Refugees or an Occupation Army? by Maria Polizoidou

By on October 11th, 2016

“Allah requires from the believers to be masters of the land where they live, and only they can have property, and only we will be able to own the land.” — Muslim migrants in Crete, Greece.

The migrants were ready to wage jihad because they believed a rumor about an event for which, even had it been true, the Greek State and its inhabitants had no responsibility.

The establishment in Greece is a miniature of the American establishment: politicians and institutions of government corrupted to the bones.

We Greeks have already been crushed by Islam, by the twentieth century genocide in Turkey and the more recent Turkish occupation of Cyprus, again with the world’s complicity.

What is happening in Greece, as in much of Europe, is actually a massive replacement of its population, its values and its way of life.

The mainstream political parties obey the self-destructive EU policies on immigration that could eventually cause the end of the Hellenic-Judeo-Christian values of Europe, such as individual freedom, critical thinking and dispassionate inquiry.

What does an occupation army do when it is installed in a country? It occupies the land, forcing residents to follow its own way of life. It implements measures against the country’s inhabitants, it propagandizes its beliefs and uses force to have them imposed.

This, sadly, is what has been happening in Greece from the migrants who seem to “forget” that they are hosted in Greece and force the Greeks to feel like guests in their own country.

If someone is a war refugee or his life is in danger in his homeland, it would seem appropriate, when he arrives in the country which offers him asylum, to be grateful to this country, respect its history, its people its values and its laws. The same would hold true for an immigrant who wants to go to a country where he hopes he will find a better future.

In Greece, conversely, illegal immigrants — all of whom the media call “refugees,” apparently trying artificially to legalize them in the moral consciousness of citizens — have been occupying spaces that do not belong to them, using violence, blocking roads, committing crimes against public property, acting aggressively toward residents and the police, and saying that they feel offended when they see symbols that represent Christianity. The guests seem to be trying to take over the house.

A few weeks ago, 200 North Africans and Pakistanis rioted in the middle of the night, demanding to leave Mytilene Island. They were chanting, “Jihad! Jihad!”, smashing the residents’ cars in the center of the island and disrupting the local community. The migrants claimed that someone told them about the death of seven migrants on a ship, so they rose up against the authorities. The police and NGO workers explained that this was misinformation, but the 200 migrants were evidently not interested in hearing that. The migrants were ready to wage jihad because they believed a rumor about an event for which, even had it been true, the Greek state and its inhabitants had no responsibility. The authorities were unsuccessful at calming them down and trying to make them return to their living area.

As it turned out, there were no dead migrants; the uprising was a “mistake,” but the police and the locals had to spend the night tracking down refugees and migrants on the streets of Mytilene.

The illegal immigrants stated that the information about the seven dead migrants came through phone calls to them during the night. Police sources say, off the record, that this incident has all the hallmarks of covert “black operations.”

Continue reading →
WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey’s Dangerous Moves in Iraq by Burak Bekdil

By on October 11th, 2016

Turkey’s primary concern is not to drive ISIS out of Mosul but to make it a “Sunni-controlled city” after ISIS has been pushed out. And this ambition jeopardizes the planned assault on ISIS.

Turkey’s pretext is that its troops are in Iraq to “fight ISIS.” That does not convince anyone.

In a span of five years Turkey has had serious political and military tensions with several countries in its vicinity: Israel, Syria, Russia, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus and Greece. Most recently, Iraq has also joined the club of hostilities surrounding Turkey.

Despite the Iraqi government’s vehement requests that Turkey withdraw its troops in Iraq, Ankara shrugs it off and says it will maintain its military presence in the neighboring country for “Iraq’s stability.” What a nice neighborly gesture! Behind the Turkish indifference lies sectarian concerns and ambitions.

On October 1, Turkey’s parliament extended the mandate of Turkish troops deployed in Iraqi territory by one more year. The troops are stationed near Bashiqa in northern Iraq — as unwanted guests. That sparked a row with Baghdad and may further complicate the cold sectarian war between the Sunnis in the region, supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and their Shiite enemies, supported by Iran and the Shiite-controlled government in Baghdad.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Trump, Reality and the GOP A Pelosi House is becoming a real election possibility.

By on October 11th, 2016

Paul Ryan told House Republicans Monday that he won’t defend Donald Trump’s campaign or his other behavior, and the Speaker advised Members to do what is best for their districts. This is not a new position so much as the latest restatement of a familiar strategy: to limit the 2016 electoral damage and preserve the GOP majority as a check on whoever wins the Presidency.

Defending down-ballot races isn’t the most inspiring goal, and it won’t satisfy those who want the moral validation of condemning Mr. Trump and all his works. But Republican leaders have real institutional obligations, and these include serving the country when their political choices are less than ideal.

At the current moment that means preventing Hillary Clinton from returning to Washington with a Democratic Senate and perhaps even House. One irony of this election is that as Mrs. Clinton has focused on disqualifying Mr. Trump’s character and temperament, she has also released about 112,000-odd words of little-noticed policy proposals that a Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi would be happy to rubber-stamp.

A new burst of liberal legislation could include a “public option” for ObamaCare that would be one more giant leap toward government-run health care. Energy from fossil fuels would become stranded assets. Government by and for the regulatory state would accelerate, and the Supreme Court would be lost to judicial conservatives for a generation. A final irony is that a Pelosi-Schumer Congress would readily pass the “amnesty” immigration bill that has animated Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
This prospect ought to concentrate Republican minds because House and Senate races are becoming more competitive as Mr. Trump slips. In the Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll published Monday, voters favored the generic Democratic ballot in Congress by seven points, 49% to 42%. Last month the spread was plus-three.

The same survey also shows the Trump predicament for GOP leaders. Some 67% of Republican voters said Congress should continue to support Mr. Trump, while 14% say they should call on him to drop out and 9% say they can’t support him personally. Mrs. Clinton is nonetheless widening her leads in swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio.

The question for Congressional Republicans is how to distance themselves from Mr. Trump when he says the indefensible without alienating his loyal core. Like it or not, a 45% plurality of GOP primary voters nominated Mr. Trump, and they knowingly put him on the ballot because they concluded that his unconventional political profile was a risk worth taking.

That choice may not have been wise, but the GOP can’t renounce democracy and win elections. A successful party must acknowledge the voters that Mr. Trump has inspired and the legitimate problems he has identified. These voters aren’t “irredeemable” in Mrs. Clinton’s phrase; most are ordinary Americans frustrated by their diminished economic prospects. CONTINUE AT SITE

Continue reading →
MEDIA Comments turned off

Megyn Kelly calls Juanita Broaddrick a Liar By Daniel John Sobieski

By on October 11th, 2016

In the post-debate analysis of Trump/s spot-on rebuttal of Team Clinton’s exploitation of the 2005 Trump “locker room” remarks, Megyn Kelly sparred with Trump manager Kelly Anne Conway over Trump’s trotting out of some of Bill’s “bimbo eruptions” in a pre-debate press conference. In what will undoubtedly be Team Clinton’s defense, Megyn Kelly claimed that Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick denied any rape in a 1998 affidavit.

Close, but no cigar, Megyn. The story is a little more complicated than that. It was not that her story was false as Megyn Kelly implied. Like many rape victims, Broaddrick felt no one would believe her and she simply wanted to put it behind her and not be forced to relive it, particularly in any legal setting: she resisted interviews, fearing no one would believe her charge against a popular President. As Breitbart reported in 2014:

In January of 1999, a month after Clinton’s impeachment by the House — and in the midst of the Senate trial grappling with whether Monica Lewinsky should testify — Broaddrick finally agreed to meet NBC’s Lisa Myers for an interview… Broaddrick’s decision to go forward with an interview came after “she contemplated all the layers of tawdry rumor about her that had multiplied in the wake of the other, larger scandal involving the president.”…

Broaddrick continued to refuse to cave to the media’s requests for interviews. In 1997, she was subpoenaed by Jones’ attorneys, yet she continued to deny the assault.

“I didn’t want to be forced to testify about one of the most horrific events in my life,” she told Myers. “I didn’t want to go through it again.”

Broaddrick still refused to come forward when Kathleen Willey accused the President of unwanted sexual advances, saying that she “wasn’t brave enough to do it.”

When Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s office approached her in April of 1998, however, Broaddrick finally agreed to provide the details of Clinton’s alleged sexual assault, saying she feared lying to a federal grand jury. Starr would also grant her immunity from prosecution for perjury….

Starr never pursued Broaddrick’s allegations, however, because he was investigating charges of obstruction of justice against Clinton. Since Broaddrick was not alleging that the President urged her to lie, her allegations of the assault never went forward.

Broaddrick feared the retaliation of Team Clinton as well as the glare of a disbelieving media. Res she signed an affidavit denying the rape, again trying to avoid being forced to relive the horrible experience. But she told Starr and his office the affidavit was false. Starr didn’t pursue the rape story not because it was false, but because it was not part of his obstruction of justice investigation.

At the Trump press conference, Broaddrick, tired of being accused of being part of a vast right-wing conspiracy, and afraid that her attacker would once again occupy the White House with the woman who orchestrated the attacks on Bill Clinton’s “bimbo eruptions”, repeated her accusation:

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Art of Neglecting Veterans By Joanna Rosamond see note please

By on October 11th, 2016

THE VA’S SCURRILOUS ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN EXPOSED BY OPEN THE BOOKS…CHECK OUT THEIR WEBSITE: http://www.openthebooks.com/about_us/ And http://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_snapshot_oversight_report_-_the_va_scandal_two_years_later/

The Department of Veteran Affairs has as its mission statement:

To fulfill President Lincoln´s promise: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan” by serving and honoring the men and women who are America´s Veterans.

How does this lead the VA to go on art shopping spree while our Veterans’ life span is dramatically reduced by inhuman living conditions and lack of medical care? While the department worries about overpayments to ex-soldiers and scrupulously “saves” millions of dollars on benefits, it seems that blowing seven figures on “artwork” can do no harm.

The VA Santa forgot about gifts such as food and shelter, yet splurged on a 27 foot artificial Christmas tree ($21,000 only) for our homeless Veterans to admire al fresco. More than half a million dollar rock sculptures are somehow necessary in a facility for blind Veterans and an army of ´´art consultants´´ is allegedly vital for VA´s transformation.

The $ 1 billion over budget Aurora facility for example, simply could not do without Brazilian wood and “a glass concourse the size of a football field,” not to mention the indispensable 70-foot-high glass walls.

The enormous budget and lack of accountability have certainly helped Secretary McDonald to hone his decoration skills. The VA Martha Stewart wannabe’s creative freedom and aesthetic appetite have clearly increased from his P&G days when he was reduced to boasting about empty drawers in his office and horsing around with a weird Japanese stick.

Secretary McDonald seemed unfazed by his September 28th subpoena and artfully skipped the topic of Denver Titanic and art expenditures, craftily turning over 18 of 71 required items of evidence.

Rightly angered, Rep. Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Veterans´ Affairs demanded answers and stated:

“We simply will not tolerate VA’s attempts to keep information related to its wasteful art expenditures and the biggest construction failure in VA history shrouded in secrecy. Sec. McDonald must immediately comply with the terms of this subpoena.”

Well, it would be about time to stop pampering Secretary McDonald with Hillary Clinton-like legal privileges; until now there are not only answers but questions which are missing.

How comes that VA could afford Blue Eclipse $250 000 hanging bubbles piece of art, while neglecting burials and leaving bodies of our Veterans to decompose?

Continue reading →
POLITICS Comments turned off

Steve Kates Dirty Donald and Sunshine Conservatives

By on October 11th, 2016

This US election is not about who has lived the most blameless life. It is about who can best protect our collective interests. Trump is a vulgarian, no doubt about it, but of the two presidential contenders he is the only one who grasps that the West is in peril.
“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer blogger and the sunshine conservative will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

This has been a fearfully clarifying US election. There are people who declare themselves on the right side of politics, who are in truth sham defenders of freedom and our way of life, and who will be forever shunned by those of us who stood for saving the American Republic and the Western world at this moment of great peril.

The American election will determine the fate of the West. An America with open borders, unprepared, unwilling and unable to defend our freedoms from predators of every kind, from Islamic terrorists, from economic vandals, from those who masquerade their profound ignorance as concern for the environment — it is from these we must defend ourselves against or our way of life will be lost. The American Republic as it has been since 1776 will disappear. We will live to see our own fall of Rome.

Sunshine conservatives: those who pretend to represent freedom, individual rights and personal responsibility, but who refuse to stand with the only person who could make a difference. They are people whom history will recognise as the enemies of freedom, who refused to stand for the right when the moment arrived. It is Trump alone, the most improbable candidate in American political history, who provides even this sliver of hope. He is elected or Hillary is elected. There is no other possible outcome.

The mounting hostility among those supposedly on his own side is a disgrace. The array of enemies who have been uncovered from within what is nominally his own side of politics has demonstrated, better than anything else might have, that the Republican Party as it has become is a rotting curse on everything it is supposed to represent.

Those who stand with Hillary in this dark hour will have revealed they cannot be trusted and their counsel is without value. They are enemies of freedom. If you support Hillary Clinton in this election, nothing you write and say will from this time forward be worth the slightest attention. Your judgements will have been revealed as eternally worthless.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

Steve Kates No Sex, Please, She’s Skittish

By on October 11th, 2016

The second presidential debate was a Trump victory, no doubt about it, even though the timely leaking of his “locker room tape” should have given his opponent a clear advantage. Hillary’s problem is that she can’t go there, not with that satyr of a husband in the wings
We know who doesn’t want Trump to win. Hillary for one, along with the Democrats in general, the infamous 47% of tax-hoovers (who have probably grown to around 55% by now), to which, strangely, you can add many, if not most, of the wealthiest financial institutions across the world. There is then the media, and not just the journalists and reporters but the owners who are all-in for Hillary. And there’s a large proportion of the Republican Party which must include the #NeverTrumps who are the supposedly right-side conservative writers, bloggers and columnists, but who are part of the political establishment with no obvious allegiance to small government and the preservation of the American Republic.

And, of course, there are the dead citizens and non-dead non-citizens who will also be lining up to vote her in, along with those who vote early and often. Not to mention those who will vote for her because she is a woman irrespective of any other considerations whatsoever.

Formidable, almost impossible odds facing Donald Trump, in other words. Even after a flawless presentation against his Obama-clone opponent, in which he took Hillary apart despite each and every effort by the laughably “impartial” moderators, the bad news is that Donald Trump remains no better than 50-50 to win. But that is also the good news. He has not yet lost and might yet emerge victorious.

And why that is so is because he represents the last chance for the United States to save itself, and approximately 51% of the voting American public know it.

The supposed killer issue was a 2005 tape made of Trump discussing in crude terms his approach to women. And possibly in anyone else’s hands, this would have been the death blow it may still turn out to be. But for Hillary Clinton, married to a genuine sexual predator, this is an issue that can only be used carefully, as the blowback is so enormous. Whatever Trump has done is as nothing in comparison with what Bill Clinton has done, who was protected by Hillary in quieting the many and various “bimbo eruptions” (her term). I regret to have to deal with this, but since you’d have to have been born before 1980 to have an active memory of any of it. I will deal with only one, the story of Paula Jones, and I will include it only at the end.

I find all this repulsive, and the Paula Jones story is the least disturbing among the stories that surfaced at the time, and it is plenty disturbing since it was only one instance of what must have been nuch more common at the time. What is more repulsive is listening to others go on about Trump, as if Clinton were not orders of magnitude worse. But what is actually significant is that bringing that tape to light has enraged Donald Trump so that we ended up with the single most devastating, one-sided debate in American political history. With Bill’s past once again in everyone’s minds, Hillary could not truly exploit the tape to the full extent she might. Trump’s was a cold anger, but it was devastating.

Continue reading →